Quirky observations about Life in Japan, Canada and the world at large.

2009-11-30

Hop To It!

Now that the Boris Blogathon is over, I can get back to less important crap, such as today's lunchhour in downtown Sendai which brought many more goodies into the Jones' household. For starters, I gained a new Peter Rabbit プレート・カップ・ボウル set during lunch at KFC. It's a rather nice plate, cup & bowl showing off the lovely artwork of Beatrix Potter.

I went to book a visit to the dentist which just happens to be right next to my Capsule salesman. There wasn't much to waste my coinage on, but he did have a set of デフォルメ (deformed) Devilman & friends from the GO NAGAI Collection...irresistable!

The latest Frankensteinia Blogathon has brought more traffic to this humble site including 2 more followers. One of those followers was the host of that very Borisathon, I urge you to head there (after reading my blog of course.) I also gained a professional Art Director type-guy named Karswell who hosts a blog called, THE HORRORS OF IT ALL with a recent run on a comic I'd never read before called Frankenstein. You can read several issues of a very amusing and quaint comic there! Speaking of followers though, I'd surf on over to Black Sun who has a terrific post on the merits of GeGeGe, of whom I coincidentally picked up two old videos at a buck a pop! Now I have the incentive I've needed to get my VCR fixed!

Check out this which looks like it might have been a feature movie. Based on the cover, it looks like it would have been appropriate for last week's posts! I will give you a review of it once I get around to watching it!

Let's see what goodies I shall reap upon my return to downtown when I get my teeth cleaned on Wednesday!

I managed to find The Lost Patrol! It's been a full week now of the Boris Blogathon, Day 7 and there are some great links in there for Karloff Kompletists. My Japanese Karloff Kollection has pretty much been exhausted so when I finished my Bridge Tournament (I won a 10$ Book certificate!), I went to a used DVD/Book shop to see what ammo I could muster.

The Lost Patrol for only 2 and a half bucks. I've never seen it and since I'm pretty tired, I'll have to finish it tomorrow but from what I've seen, Boris is a pretty wacky Preacher!

肉弾鬼中隊 is pronounced Niku Tama Oni Chuutai and my friend ran it through her translator and came up with Meatball Devil Company Commander! I suspect that something has gone awry! Check it out though, it's a good way to kill an hour!

I also found a little encyclopedia of Big Bizarre Facts that in it's section on Monsters has our friendly neighbourhood Frankenstein and Bride! (I'll have to scan some other pages of this book, it's quite the odd collection from lions to Jaws to the Elephant man to Poltergeist to Miira/Mummy to...)

It basically translates as: Frankenstein, a 1931 movie is the story of a Doctor who makes a monster. The actor portraying it is Boris Karloff and the monster had an inferior brain acquired from a human body placed in its head. Later a sequel was written starring Elsa Lancaster as his Bride. I can't properly translate it for either He or She is considered a Superhero!

Thanks to all the gang at the Boris Week, it has been a blast. But I'll be glad to get back to my ordinary inanity starting tomorrow! Be sure to check out Frankensteinia and its sister Blog, Monster Crazy!

2009-11-28

Kaibutsu-Kun.

Does this guy look familiar? I'd like to think that Boris Karloff would appreciate having his most famous character portrayed constantly holding a flower. フランケン (Franken) is a companion of 代物くん (Kaibutsu-Kun = Little Monster) who along with ドラキュラ (Dorakyura/Dracula) and オオカミ男 (Ookami-Otoko/Wolfman) fight against the forces of evil such as ミイラ男 (Miira-Otoko/mummy), キングコング (King Kong) or ガブロ (Gaburo)! (Click that link for a couple of YouTubes I'd posted earlier, or click Kaibutsu-Kun for an unembeddable view.)

Kaibutsu-kun was the creation of 藤子不二雄 (Fujiko Fujio), the penname of a manga writing duo formed by two Japanese manga artists. Their real names are 藤本 弘, Fujimoto Hiroshi, 1933-1996) and 安孫子 素雄, Abiko Motō, 1934- more famously known as the creators of Doraemon.

Fellow monster aficionado, DJ Mokugohan leant me this 45 from his collection so I could scan it for one and all. Very very cool stuff indeed!

2009-11-27

Little Big Heads!

Of all those actors who portrayed the various Universal Monsters, I'm certain that Boris Karloff had the littlest of the big heads. I could wax eloquently about the merits of BK in フランケンシュタイン/(Furankenshutain = Frankenstein) or フランケンシュタインの花嫁/(Furankenshutain no Hana Yomei = The Bride of Frankenstein) or ミイラ再生/(Miira Saisei = The Mummy), but that is best served by those better qualified in Day 5 of the Boris Blogathon.

I don't ever recall seeing this box set nor did I buy these guys individually but somehow they crept into my collection. I suspect I acquired them at a Flea Market in big bag o' monsters and some exorbitant price. But I'm glad I did!

Here is Boris as the Mummy:

starring in Frankenstein:

and with his lovely Bride:

I'm heading to an onsen to play in a Bridge tournament all weekend, so another Boris post will follow shortly. See ya all Sunday night, wish me luck!

I can find next to no information about one of my favourite Karloffian roles, that of グリンチ. There is tons of information about the lame Howard-helmed, Carrey-starring Gurinchi and if you click that link, you can find several examples of the movie and related merchandise but nothing about the classic Chuck Jones anime narrated by Boris. Be sure to visit Day 4 of the Boris Blogathon and search around to find more Grinchy Goodness!

I have my own well-worn VHS copy that I've used as a teaching aid on occasion but it's difficult to translate some of the Seussier language into Japanese. On the other hand, I would rather not find a copy of this video over here for they'd be certain to dub over the dulcet tones of Mr. Karloff's narration and ruin it!

I would love to read a translation of Dr. Seuss's グリンチ in Japanese. I'm sure it's quite bizarre! Though it's been my experience that the "must translate everything" Japanese students I've had just don't get Seuss.

I did manage to find an imported version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas dvd in English with a review in Japanese, but that's about it. Of course I could also find グリンチ for Gameboy but I haven't played any Gameboy since I left Canada and I suspect you can find it overseas as well.

I am rather impressed by this artist's renditions of some Whovillians that I felt I must share them with you.

2009-11-26

Visages Of Boris.

It's time for my third venture into all things Boris and this time I'll take his iconic look in Frankenstein (and a brief peek at the Mummy.)

Last Thanksgiving when I went home, I found hidden away in my secret laboratory a few model kits, another of which I shall present to you now. It's Bandai's version of フランケンシュタイン from 1979. (You can find Godzilla & Dracula here.)

Dig back into the recesses of my blog and you'll find several images of Frankenstein or the Mummy (such as Universal Kubricks.)

While shopping for Halloween candy for the kiddies (& co-workers), I came across a couple of Monsters stuffed with caramels or jellybeans. As everyone knows it was candy that Victor used in his reanimation formula, not electricity!

I have some more examples of the Modern Prometheus showing up in my collection but I have to save something for tomorrow...

2009-11-25

It's Bolisu Kaarofu!

(I missed a day in the Borisathon, so it's time to play catch-up. Here's a link to Day 2 and Day 3 in which I hope this entry qualifies.)

Using the common stereotype of Asian's mixing up their syllables, here we have ボリス・カーロフ (or Bolisu Kaarofu) as the eponymous and very Asian Mr. Wong. I've spoken at length in the past of Hollywood actors portraying famous & infamous Japanese characters, for example Marlon Brando, whose head you can see below the pic of Mr. Wong. (Or just click on Japolliwood in the Labels list below!) and though Bolisu has never played a Japanese citizen to my knowledge, he has a history of a more sinoster nature. Taking a cue from Charlie Chan, Mr. Moto, et al., his most famous role was as Mr. James Wong in a series of detective stories. I've scanned a bit from a copy of Bizarre Magazine for you to read. (Click on the pic to Shanghai-size it!)

Get that? I couldn't find a Japanese link for you to practice your Nihongo but our friends at IMBD inform us of the Mr. Wong series

Doomed to Die (1940) Played by Boris Karloff... aka The Mystery of Wentworth Castle The Fatal Hour (1940) Played by Boris Karloff... aka Mr. Wong at Headquarters (UK) Mr. Wong in Chinatown (1939) Played by Boris Karloff (as Mr. James Lee Wong)The Mystery of Mr. Wong (1939) Played by Boris KarloffMr. Wong, Detective (1938) Played by Boris Karloff (as Mr. James Lee Wong)

For your viewing pleasure, you can start here with Mr. Wong in Chinatown:

He enjoyed portraying the Chinese and continued doing so as the evil warlord General Wu Yen Fang in West of Shanghai (but I have very little detail on this one...can any fellow Boris-bloggers help me out?)

Another Chinese character he portrayed was the villainous Fu Manchu and in a surprise move, he meets Godzilla:

Oops, that wasn't right at all. Here is Karloff in 1932 as Fu Manchu in 成吉斯汗の仮面 (Fu Manchu no Kamen) or Mask of Fu Manchu:

2009-11-24

Cast A Spell!

I just caught a flick before it disappears from these hallowed shores and is Dragged Down to Hell along with all of Raimi's other movies. Over here the movie is called, "スペル = Spell", though I suspect that if they wanted a one-word title, "" would be more effective. A few jolts, a whole lot of giggles and overall a very enjoyable way to spend my 勤労感謝の日 (Labour-Thanksgiving) evening.

I also picked up several more movie programs (at half price) so I'll have blogger-fodder for the cold winter months. Add to this, a new KitKat flavour (limited edition バナナ (banana))over and above the mail-box versions and today was pretty good.

Today's postable KitKat is 柚子こしょう,九州から (Yuzu & koshou, a citrus fruit from Kyushu Region and a spicy-hot togaroshi pepper). I suspect I shall really enjoy this one for myself!

2009-11-23

Geronimo!

For my first entry in the Boris Blogathon, I did some surfing (appropriate for the amount of Beach Party parties he did late in life) and found a few sites where you can take a peek at Mr. Karloff's final works. Such as ビキニ・ビーチ (Bikini Beach.)

Unfortunately, I can't find much information on the movie in Japanese, but here's a treat...the theme song performed live by the Yokosuka Band:

Or how about ヘブンリー・ビキニ (Heavenly Bikini-a far superior title, IMHO) from 1966 known as Ghost in the Invisible Bikini in the US. I'm unable to copy the cover, so you'll have to click the first link to see it. You'll get a brief look at Boris and a few seconds of Nancy Sinatra singing Geronimo here:

Though not a Beach Movie, one of the last things he did was a voice over for マッド・モンスター・パーティ (Mad Monster Party). It looks intriguing! Here's an unembeddable clip of It's the Mummy! It's Sick-adelic!

2009-11-22

Go, My Way!

Y'know how your evening starts one way and then goes off on a tangent? That's what happened to me last night. I joined my Liga-waitress friend, Mai, at a live J-Pop event at Macana. I wasn't expecting much and thus wasn't disappointed though 2500￥ was a bit steep. One of her friends, Naoko, was singing and I was impressed enough to buy a cheap cd. (Glad it was cheap, it's not very good.) But she does have a nice voice and a great range. Check out キリマルカラー for yourself.

The other groups included Monako 90000, a duet of keyboard & acoustic guitar and lovely harmony.

オランジタルト (Orange Taruto) was also surprisingly good.

As always, the headliner band, Jimbey was incredibly lame. Great musicians forced to work for a Boy-band boy who was completely talentless. Audience seemed to like them for some reason though. I highly recommend you avoid them!

I met a pair of German students, one of whom is leaving soon, and the other has been here a week. I gave them a tour of the different Sendai venues, hoping to drum up some more business for Tuesday at Droom where DJ Mokugohan will be spinning some techno-tunes. Alas, there is NO flyer for this, and the website offers surprisingly little info. Anywho, we ended up at Liga where they managed to sing (butcher) a few tunes and as always, I was unable to chat up my Mai, cuz she was too busy.

So I gave up and wondered over to Friends to chat with Akari. One of the regulars dumped this scruffy looking guy in the bar and then left and much to our amazement, he set up an easel, put on some funky tunes and in the course of 5 minutes painted a picture. Here are a few of the highlights of him in action plus the finished product. I asked him, "How much?" and he said it was "priceless"! He then gave it to Akari gratis.

About Me

I was born a young white child. After almost 20 years of depressing social work, dealing with all manners of society's dregs, I decided to chuck it all and move to Japan and teach English. Now I'm a happy camper teaching Elementary School kids in Watari, Miyagi.